I always love it when I reread Isaiah 30 regarding the promise of God to His people. While I understand these words as a promise to the Israelites, I think it also reflects the character of God and His heart towards all believers. Isaiah writes in Isaiah 30:19-23:

People of Zion, who live in Jerusalem, you will weep no more. How gracious he will be when you cry for help! As soon as he hears, he will answer you. Although the Lord gives you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, your teachers will be hidden no more; with your own eyes you will see them. Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, “This is the way; walk in it.” Then you will desecrate your idols overlaid with silver and your images covered with gold; you will throw them away like a menstrual cloth and say to them, “Away with you!” He will also send you rain for the seed you sow in the ground, and the food that comes from the land will be rich and plentiful.

I tend to underline the first promise about God answering as we cry for help and providing clear teachers to us. But this week, I focused on the very last verse:

He will also send you rain for the seed you sow in the ground,  and the food that comes from the land will be rich and plentiful.

Broadly applied, I wondered about the New Testament imagery of sowing seed as a metaphor for sowing to please the Spirit and sowing the seeds of the gospel. I thought of all those ways we plant seeds of faith in our lives and how God will send rain to make these seeds grow.

I thought of seeds of books, of speaking about Jesus, about any host of things. I thought of projects started in faith and tiny beginnings that we pray will bear fruit.

And I thanked God for sending rain to now make all these seeds grow and spread.

Amen.